I adore Ilona Andrews. I finally got around to reading her Romantic Urban Fantasy series this year and was beyond delighted to discover it is excellent.

The third and final book in the trilogy, Wildfire, wraps everything up perfectly in an extremely satisfying conclusion on all counts.

I’ll avoid spoilers for this book, but there may be spoilers for books one, Burn For Me, and two, White Hot.

You have been warned!

My Review Of Ilona Andrews’ Wildfire

Wildfire earned its name, as the romance between Nevada and Rogan continues its theme of being both scorching hot and utterly believable, despite the added complication of Rogan’s ex-fiancé appearing on the scene.

This could so easily have turned into another infuriating Lorelei situation (an irritating character in Magic Rises, a novel in the Kate Daniels series by the same author), and certainly when I first read it that was my initial concern. However, that is neatly avoid by the most shocking thing ever.

Effective communication and adult behaviour.

I know.

Nobody was more surprised than me.

It’s obvious which way things are going and how everyone feels. My problem when the jealousy issue came up with Kate and Curran was that I didn’t feel I knew Curran well enough to actually trust he wasn’t doing anything untoward.

It never entered my head that Rogan would cheat.

Curran, on the other hand, I could see it happening, and that really bothered me.

Even though it didn’t actually happen, it still colours my view of his character to this day, because I believed him capable of it.

Call me crazy, but I can’t get behind any love interest who appears to be capable of cheating.

For any reason.

I’ve been cheated on too many times myself to ever find jealousy sexy. It’s not. It’s rancid cancer that devours your soul whole if you’re not careful, even when there genuinely isn’t anything going on. Genuine jealousy – the true fear that someone is being unfaithful, rather than the simple irritation that they’re paying a little too much attention to someone else – is utterly toxic to any relationship. 

So I was really glad to find I had enough faith in Rogan to immediately dismiss the possibility, and while Nevada does get jealous and annoyed with him for certain things, she never believes he’d cheat either.

Her faith in him is unshakeable and that faith has been hard-earned after the sacrifice he made at the end of White Hot.

So their relationship feels genuine, natural, and very strong as a direct and organic result of everything we’ve seen them go through.

At the same time, Wildfire provides an extremely satisfying conclusion to the overarching plot that’s been running through the series, while fully developing the subplots involving Nevada’s family, and completing her Rags to Riches arc in style.

I May Actually Love This Series More Than Kate Daniels

While Nevada is an amazing heroine, I have to say it’s Rogan who really makes this series for me, and actually leads me to prefer the Hidden Legacy books (by a hair) to the Kate Daniels series.

That’s not to say I don’t still love the KD books and can’t wait for the next one, but I feel the Hidden Legacy series has all the strengths of the KD books as well as an additional sense of balance.

There’s more romance, but it’s never at the expense of the extremely engaging plot. The dynamic between Nevada and Rogan is more equal than Kate and Curran. And Rogan is a genuine and consistent presence in the series, rather than being (as Curran frequently is) little more than a side character who drops in to pivotal fight scenes and features in the romantic sub-plot, but is otherwise a distant presence.

Add to this the fact I find Rogan far more appealing than Curran both intellectually and physically, and it’s not really surprising I did a happy dance of joy when it was announced Ilona Andrews has signed a deal for a new trilogy to continue the series, and a novella bridging the gap between Wildfire and the first book of the new set.